New (Non-Bright Eyes) Conor Oberst Album, Tour

Looks like this whole Mystic Valley Band thing is the real deal for Conor Oberst-- they even have cool matching windbreakers to prove it (left). The Bright Eyes mastermind's non-Bright Eyes band is already set to drop the follow-up to last year's sorta-underrated Conor Oberst. It's called Outer South and it's out May 5 on Merge. While Oberst wrote nearly all of the songs for the first album with the Mystic Valley Band, Outer South includes songwriting contributions from Jason Boesel, Nik Freitas, and Taylor Hollingsworth in addition to Oberst. This makes sense because, when I saw the group in NYC last year, the main attraction played sideman on a few of the night's Gram Parsons-style songs-- in other words, Outer South looks to be more of a band album. Oberst is still prolific, but not inhumanly prolific, apparently. The record will include the gum-themed country track "Nikorette", which the group performed on "Conan" last year.

The Mystic Valley Band will endure the Coachella heat this year and they're doing some smaller gigs in the Western half of the United States starting April 9, too. Hang it on your calendar: